DHAKA, April 18: Bangladesh authorities said on Tuesday they would bring home the remains of their liberation war hero from Pakistan 35 years after he died in a plane crash.

Flight Lieutenant Motiur Rahman died after a fighter plane he hijacked from a Karachi airbase crashed near the India-Pakistan border during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of liberation with Pakistan.

Rahman, was buried in Karachi.

But the Bangladesh government said in a statement Tuesday that it intended to repatriate Rahman’s remains for reburial with full state honours as soon as possible.

A committee headed by a top government bureaucrat had been created to oversee the return, it added.

Pakistan agreed to the proposal in March during a visit to Islamabad by Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, a senior foreign ministry official told AFP speaking on condition of anonymity.—AFP